Ecology type writes about the likely shape of the next 400,000 years given the fossil fuel pulse of carbon we are producing, the natural cycles the Earth is subject to over that timescale, and how ecological realities have responded to crazy events in the past and human effects in the present. Short version: We will whipsaw up potentially all the way to Eocene level temperatures over a few hundred years, with seas responding in kind over a thousand or two years during which coastlines will be in flux and coastal infrastructure will be very difficult, and then slowly return to the current icehouse climate as geological equilibrium reasserts itself and plunge into another normal ice age some time between 200k and 400k years from now, the Earth’s flora and fauna and civilizations getting a one-two punch from the big sudden excursion.
This kind of thorough exploration of a topic is very interesting to me and has inspired me to resume work on my astrobiology writing now that my ridiculous semester is done, such that another post is finally coming soon...
Hot Earth Dreams, by Frank Landis.
http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Earth-Dreams-climate-happens/dp/1517799392
46 page sample available here. https://heteromeles.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/hot-earth-dreams-sample1.pdf
Ecology type writes about the likely shape of the next 400,000 years given the fossil fuel pulse of carbon we are producing, the natural cycles the Earth is subject to over that timescale, and how ecological realities have responded to crazy events in the past and human effects in the present. Short version: We will whipsaw up potentially all the way to Eocene level temperatures over a few hundred years, with seas responding in kind over a thousand or two years during which coastlines will be in flux and coastal infrastructure will be very difficult, and then slowly return to the current icehouse climate as geological equilibrium reasserts itself and plunge into another normal ice age some time between 200k and 400k years from now, the Earth’s flora and fauna and civilizations getting a one-two punch from the big sudden excursion.
This kind of thorough exploration of a topic is very interesting to me and has inspired me to resume work on my astrobiology writing now that my ridiculous semester is done, such that another post is finally coming soon...